Ideas are called “ideas” because they’re just ideas. You can’t log in to an idea. You can’t sign up for an idea. You can’t use an idea as collateral against a loan. You can’t trade idea stocks on the Nasdaq. You can’t carry idea currency in your wallet. You can’t deposit an idea in a bank. You can’t lend ideas. You can’t lease ideas. You can’t pay someone in ideas. You can’t sell an idea. You can’t buy an idea. You can’t lose an idea. You can’t steal an idea.
Nothing
The total value of all the ideas in all the world is nothing. A man with a million ideas has no wealth. But the man that applies his talents, connections, assets, efforts, knowledge and savvy to an idea to make value can generate wealth. The difference between the man that keeps his ideas to himself and James Kennedy, the man that let his idea go, is that James has a business and other guy still has an idea.
20 Comments
Great post, killer ending.
Posted by Eamon Leonard at 2:28 pm on 29 October, 2008.
Great post.
Heh, in keeping with Hallow’een Twitter is the ‘blue touchpaper’ to launch the blog post.
Posted by David McDonald at 2:39 pm on 29 October, 2008.
Good post, and yeah, it’s surprising how often folks get carried away worrying about the idea, when it’s really the implementation that’s going to make or break them. You see it pretty often in game development circles too - a beginner thinks they have a killer idea for a great game, and seem to think that has some merit on its on. They get worried about protecting it from being nicked, or start asking about how they submit it to a game development studio. Both of which are utterly pointless activities until you’ve built a game around it.
“You can’t trade idea stocks on the Nasdaq.”
Well, not since 2001 or thereabouts
Posted by Dave Cahill at 3:14 pm on 29 October, 2008.
Great post - and again, well done with taskfive.com - simple and effective.
Posted by David Horn at 5:56 pm on 29 October, 2008.
well said. I love this quote so much, I’ve added it to my sig:
“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”
- Howard Aiken
Posted by Chuck Boyce at 7:25 pm on 29 October, 2008.
I think it’s great that James has taken initiative and has gone through the process he has for taskfive.com. However, I think it would be more accurate to state that James has an application, not a business. It’s important to note that just because you have a great application (which from the looks of things taskfive definitely is very well done), does not necessarily mean that there is a business model there that will work.
Of course, I obviously hope it does work! Good luck, James.
Posted by Pat at 7:42 pm on 29 October, 2008.
I absolutely agree. But I am close to going one step further: building it doesn’t mean a whole lot either. Getting other people to actually use and/or appreciate it is really where it’s at.
Posted by Chris Ritke at 7:53 pm on 29 October, 2008.
Nice post Eoghan
Got a head full of them, worth sweet FA most days, worth millions on tough days
Posted by ice at 10:10 pm on 29 October, 2008.
Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
Posted by Victor Hugo at 11:16 pm on 29 October, 2008.
Just a note to add:
I 100% agree that a web application != a business, as would my colleagues. However James has a solid business plan that TaskFive pops nicely into, which was one of the reasons we chose his idea.
Posted by Des at 12:43 am on 30 October, 2008.
Great post man!!!
Posted by Niyaz at 6:54 am on 30 October, 2008.
There’s lots of talk about ideas and scientific conclusions countering Eoghan’s thoughts above. I would encourage anyone interested in idea-generation to read James Webb Young’s Technique for Producing Ideas.
The problem with using the ‘ideas man’ or scientific examples is that these kinds of people are exactly not the kind of people that Eoghan is talking about. Einstein, for example, certainly didn’t just pop the theory of relativity randomly out of his head on the bog one day.
Ideas do, as James Webb Young explains, come out of ‘lightbulb moments,’ but these idea moments, and indeed scientific discovery are born out of hours, years, lifetimes of research.
Indeed a more apt comparison would be the man who dreams about becoming a scientist, and the scientist who dedicates his life to work that produces ideas.
Posted by Paul Campbell at 3:33 pm on 30 October, 2008.
You can’t deposit an idea in a bank. You can’t lend ideas. You can’t lease ideas. You can’t sell an idea. You can’t buy an idea. You can’t lose an idea.
That’s true.
If you never have an idea!
There would be nothing without an idea.
Posted by David at 4:18 pm on 30 October, 2008.
ideas can inspire. so if you have put a value on inspiration, then there is some value there.
Posted by adnan. at 1:35 am on 2 November, 2008.
Wonderfully bluntly put. You might also like my similar post called Ideas are just a multiplier of execution.
Posted by Derek Sivers at 1:59 am on 2 November, 2008.
Good Article: thumbs up! One minor naggy, though: you can sell ideas. It’s called advertising sometimes. Or philosophy. Or art. OK, this is a bit besides the point of your artivle, but still.
Posted by Christopher Küttner at 1:35 am on 3 November, 2008.
that was a fun article. it has the quippy zing of an inspirational framed poster. i’d have used a big musty, er.. *misty* mountain as an illustration. are you sure you just build web apps? not also expanding to inspirational talks?
no seriously though- well done.
this whole project was one brilliant idea!
(I had to say that)
Posted by heather at 3:04 am on 6 November, 2008.
It’s very true that ideas are just waves in the air, until you start to produce them. The other side of this is…if you don’t take your ideas seriously (record them, write them down, store them), then many of them slip away over time. So, yes, they’re worthless scribblings…but you have to respect them, and record them as they come in!
Sometimes several ideas collide and create a new idea altogether.
For instance, the cover shot of Sports Illustrated wasn’t taken by planning, discussing and implementing the one photo….there were probably hundreds, or thousands of photos…one made it to the cover. Without the other 999, your shot might not have made the cover.
So, every idea is important. Maybe even “priceless!”
Maybe the “idea” is the dream and the “implementation” is the responsibility.
I think you need two parts to make a successful product or business:
1. Great Ideas (constant positive flow of actionable and marketable concepts)
2. Great Execution (design, finishing, implementation, marketing, sales)
If the point was that, hoarding an idea…and not letting it out into the marketplace for fear of it getting stolen, or it failing…is bad…then I agree with the conclusion that “ideas are worthless.”
Posted by Frank at 6:22 am on 21 January, 2009.
Что, что, а такой подробной статьи не видел давно. Респект и уважуха автору
Posted by skidoknet at 1:54 am on 4 December, 2009.
Чётко, кратко и интересно. Наверное правильно говорят, что краткость сестра таланта
Posted by mastepoc at 12:54 am on 15 December, 2009.
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